Virtual call to action for Palestine: COVID-19, Gaza and the Struggle for Justice

Many organizations and individuals have joined our call to action, issued jointly with the Higher National Committee for the Great March of Return and Breaking the Siege in Gaza, for actions between 24-30 March to commemorate the second anniversary of the Great March of Return in Gaza and the 44th Land Day in occupied Palestine. Our call to action, republished below with our list of endorsers, remains in place, and we have listed several in-person events and actions scheduled for this day, including multiple events in Britain.

However, many events have been organized in cities where they may no longer take place, due to the danger posed by COVID-19, guidance from public health authorities or regulations promulgated by municipalities, states and countries. Protecting each other’s health at this critical time is essential to continuing the struggle against the forces of oppression and exploitation that deny people health care or price it with a profit motive.

In Gaza, our comrades have informed us that there is great concern about the potential for the spread of COVID-19. No cases have yet been discovered in Gaza, but dozens have been in the West Bank and hundreds in occupied Palestine ’48, as well as in Egypt across the Rafah border. Given the siege, which has denied Palestinians in Gaza much-needed health and sanitation equipment for over a decade, COVID-19’s entry into Gaza could be devastating. Therefore, they are very hesitant to mobilize thousands of people in large crowds, due to the risk of viral spread.

At this time, we note that, while COVID-19 threatens people around the world, it does not transcend border, class or empire. In Iran, U.S. sanctions deny people much-needed medical care. Many people around the world, even in the heart of the empire, wonder how they will pay for health care or even to survive if they are out of work due to COVID-19 or the related economic slowdowns. Those in prisons, detention centers and migrant camps are particularly vulnerable. In Palestine, Israel’s racist approach to COVID-19 has seen reports of infected doctors visiting Palestinian prisoners and the encouragement of public celebrations for the Israeli Jewish population at the same time that prisoners are denied family visits.

We support all efforts to organize in a way that supports Palestine and public health, and we will provide further updates as things change. We encourage organizers in locations affected by the virus and by public health restrictions to also consider virtual activities and online events and discussions, as well as to join the call from Gaza for a Virtual March on 30 March 2020.

“Mark Palestine Land Day (Yawm Al-Ard), a day of remembrance for six Palestinian citizens who were murdered by Israelis while protesting the Israeli government’s expropriation of thousands of dunums of their land. March together online on the second anniversary of the Great March of Return.

Express your solidarity with Palestinian people by tweeting on the hashtag #PalestineLandDay

Let’s say NO to Israel’s colonialism, NO to the apartheid regime, and NO to land theft!”

24-30 March 2020, worldwide: International week of action to support the Great March of Return and Breaking the Siege

Join Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip in a global mobilization on the second anniversary of the Great Return March to demand the right of return for Palestinian refugees and an end to Israel’s siege of Gaza.

On March 30, 2018, tens of thousands of Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip launched the Great March of Return and Breaking the Siege.

But the demands of the Great Return March – an end to Israel’s brutal closure of the Gaza Strip and the right of return for millions of Palestinian refugees ethnically cleansed from their homes – remain no less critical nearly two years later.

Seven years after the United Nations first warned that the conditions imposed by Israel’s siege would render Gaza unlivable by 2020, its crises of electricity, water, employment, and food security have already reached the breaking point.

This isolation of the Gaza Strip is part of Israel’s strategy to displace the Palestinian people, fragment our society, and liquidate our national movement.

Its plan, which started with the ethnic cleansing of 720,000 Palestinians in 1948, continues today with the use of walls, checkpoints, and roads to divide Palestinian neighborhoods and communities; the demolitions of Palestinian homes and institutions in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and 1948-occupied Palestine; the seizure of Palestinian land for Israeli settlements; the targeting of Palestinian leaders for political detention; and the exclusion of Palestinian refugees from their occupied homeland with lethal force.

Yet Palestinians have never paused our legitimate struggles for return, self-determination, and national liberation, from the armed Resistance, to general strikes, to Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns, to the Great Return March.

Since 2018, Palestinian refugees have persevered against unbelievable odds, braving Israeli occupation fire and risking injury and death to demand our right to return to the homes from which Israeli occupation forces drove us at gunpoint.

As the second anniversary of the Great Return March on 30 March – Palestinian Land Day – nears, we call on its supporters worldwide to join an international week of action to support its demands between 24-30 March 2020.

Have an activity to support the next Freedom Flotilla , which will sail in 2020 to challenge Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Build a Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign against a target complicit in Israeli violations of Palestinian rights and international law.

Hold a screening of a documentary on Israeli crimes against Palestinian refugees and the Gaza Strip and their struggle for liberation.

Rally in solidarity with the Great Return March in a public area.

Host a speaker on the Great Return March and its demands.

Target political officials in your country to demand they publicly oppose Israeli crimes against Palestinians and impose meaningful sanctions for them.

In all your efforts, we ask that you visibly support the Great March of Return and Breaking the Siege and our just demands.

On this, the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, we call on the world, its people and movements to escalate their support for Palestine and our century-long struggle for national liberation.

Higher National CommissionGreat March of Return and Breaking the SiegeGaza, Palestine29 November 2019